Life Of Pi Essay Survival

In the book, Life of Pi, the protagonist’s survival depends greatly on his ability to forget time. Throughout the novel, the effects of that capability are portrayed as good because Pi believes he “survived because I [Pi] forgot even the very notion of time”. It is because of this skill that Pi is able to manage his grief and focus on his survival. His ordeal at sea is one that cannot be survived without a combination of soundness of mind, hope, and hard work, all things he cannot manage if he lets himself absorb the extent of the calamity befallen him. Forgetting time makes such events less palpable, which in turn allows him to focus on survival.

Pi distances himself from the reality of his situation by forgetting time. It is easier to evade the trauma of the tragic loss of his family and past because without the existence of time, the causes of his suffering are less tangible. As humans, we naturally associate significant events with dates because doing so makes them concrete. The moment you acknowledge that something happened on a specific day, you concede that it happened in the first place, which is exactly what Pi wants to avoid. He makes his losses insubstantial by not acknowledging …show more content…
In Pi’s case, time makes the negative in his life a reality, so he chooses to shut it out. The only way he can distance himself from all the grim happenings is to make them less real by removing their association to a specific moment. He does not want to confront the things his experiences have brought out in him, and to avoid doing so, he makes the whole ordeal unreal by removing time.This is a prime example of human nature; as humans, we want to shut the negative out. Doing so makes us feel safer; like the world is a better place, and when we cannot, we are discouraged. Sometimes successfully ignoring the bad is the only way we can handle life’s trials. If that means having to forget time as well, then so be